MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

6/30 Extra bases

* Ryan Dempster, on the DL with a sore right lat, threw flat ground on Saturday and will throw off a mound in a bullpen session on Monday.

“His last outing and even the outing before were pretty positive,” Dale Sveum said of Volstad. “It’s logical — it’s his day and he’s done a good job his last couple outings. It’s a logical thing to do.”

Volstad has been pitching at Triple-A Iowa since his 0-6 start with the Cubs.

* Sveum went with his regular lineup against lefty J.A. Happ. Lefties are batting .275 against Happ.

“You try to solidify the lineup a little bit,” Sveum said. “Happ’s numbers against left-handers are the same. He doesn’t really dominate left-handed hitters so we’re trying to get [Bryan] LaHair and [David] DeJesus at-bats. Sometimes you have to let them go because They’ll have to face left-handers in a game out of the bullpen in big situations sometimes. You have to give them some at-bats on a regular basis.”

* Ian Stewart may have to make a decision soon on whether to have surgery on his left wrist. It’s not making progress since he had a cortisone shot in mid June.

“They haven’t made a complete decision,” Svem said. “There’s some calcification on the bone that’s causing some of the problem.”

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